The State legislator says…I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine… to the lobbyist. And so it goes in Georgia; State legislators from both houses ‘belly up’ to the ‘free perk’ trough supplied by the lobbyists of big business and state agencies in Georgia.
Need tickets for a Hawks game or the Falcons? May be a night on the town with your wife or ‘significant other’? Is $400.00 okay for dinner and drinks? How about we supply the ‘finger food’ for your political rally in your home town? We don’t mind ‘catering’ your event! Was that $50 lunch okay yesterday?
This morning’s guest speakers were investigative reporters Ann Hardie and Nancy Badertscher of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Better known to State legislators as the ‘thorns in their legislative backsides’, these two reporters ‘hunt down’ State legislature ‘bird dogs’ who can’t seem to get enough ‘freebee’s’ from state lobbyists.
Lobbyists, in only 65 days this year; ‘coughed up’ $931,000.00 to ‘curry favor’ with Georgia legislators. This kind of ‘buttering up’ is prohibited in fifteen states. But it seems in Georgia, State legislators ‘feel they are entitled’ to these perks. They are ‘part-time’ politicians who receive ‘small salaries’, are away from their businesses at home for extended periods of time, and have to attend ‘expensive social events’ in Atlanta, which their legislative job requires, of course. Sure your State legislators feel they deserve these perks. They’re working for you, Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Public. Don’t you want to know how they’re spending your tax dollars? Someone pass that champagne to that guy from Bainbridge!
The Georgia legislature doesn’t like ‘regulations’ or laws that ‘keep tabs’ on them. In fact, they exempt themselves from laws that are supposed to ‘limit’ their ‘perks’. They, as a public body, do everything in their power to impede the dissemination of data to the public so they don’t know what they spend.
Isn’t it interesting how the State Ethics Commission was never properly funded by the Legislature so it could report to the public what the executive and legislative branches of State government spend? But State of Georgia wants to know ‘what’s in your wallet’. Bring on the screaming ‘Vikings’!!! Georgia needs lobby reform! We’re one of the last two States in the Union who need lobby reform because of ‘runaway perks’.
The lobbyists are smarter in Georgia than the legislators. They know a good thing when they see it! The voters are ‘complacent’. Big business and State agencies have figured this out! They get what they want. But the man on the street that pays the taxes gets nothing. Can another ‘Boston Tea Party’ be far behind?
Club member and past club President Dr. Bob Threatt introduced prospective member Mr. Nile B. Thompson, Atlanta District Executive of the Boy Scouts of America. We look forward to getting to know him better. Nile has also expressed an interest in working with Lantz Balthazar on the Circle K committee.
“I begin by taking. I shall find scholars later to demonstrate my perfect
right.”
-- Frederick(II) the Great
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